Any discussion of the background art throughout the specification should in no way be considered as an admission that such art is widely known or forms part of common general knowledge in the field.
Digital Video Management (DVM) systems are widely used. In overview, a plurality of cameras are assigned to a plurality camera servers, with each camera server being configured to make available (for live viewing or recording purposes) video data from an assigned one or more cameras. The camera servers are all centrally managed by a DVM database server. In general terms, a client wishing to view live video data from a given one of the cameras provides a request to the DVM database server, and is informed which camera server makes available video data for that camera. The client then opens a connection with that camera server, and streams the live video data for local viewing.
There is an inherent limitation on the number of cameras that can be supported by a single DVM system. This leads to complications in terms of scalability. Furthermore, various situations arise where geographically dispersed sites require local autonomy but also central monitoring. Bandwidth between such sites presents a limiting factor to constrain the manner in which video data and/or other data is shared.
There is a need in the art for improved systems and methods for managing video data.